Opinion Piece by the Chief Whip of Council, Cllr Kevin Patrick Wax, PhD
In 2018, South Africa will commemorate the 42nd year since the sad but heroic day of 16 June 1976.
Youth Month in 2018 will be commemorated under the theme “Live the Legacy: Towards A Socio-Economically Empowered Youth”.
For our country, June 16 was a watershed event that changed the history and direction of South Africa in the fight against the injustice of Apartheid. Whilst it has been 24 years since the inception of democracy, and the historic defeat of the apartheid regime, South Africans today are still grappling with the critical issues of inequality, poverty, unemployment and a wide range of socio-economic challenges, especially amongst the youth.
Added to these challenges is the issue of youth unemployment. Further to the challenges faced by the youth is that within the South African historical context and indeed the City, challenges faced by the youth include quality of education, inaccessibility of tertiary education, and the curriculum to adequately prepare youth for the open labour market.
Given that education has the ability to lift young people out of poverty; it is especially those from poor households that are in need of quality education in order to improve their lives. This is due to the fact that higher levels of education mean increased chances of finding employment, and the potential for increased levels of income, and therefore, decreased levels of poverty.
The youth unemployment challenges in South Africa are closely related to the inability of young people to obtain employment owing to their lack of experience, which is all too often compounded by a lack of skills. The result is a growing cohort of young people with severely limited access to formal sector employment, and limited means to do anything about this.
In the City of Johannesburg, initiatives such as The Tourism Monitors Programme involves training, mentorship and placement of unemployed youth in tourism attractions and sites. The objectives of the Programme are to enhance tourism safety awareness at key tourism attractions/ sites and to skill and provide practical work experience to the unemployed youth, enabling them to be employable.
It is estimated that 60% of youth in the city from the age of 18 to 35 years (with the majority being women) have since been recruited onto the monitors programme.
The City’s Department of Economic Development has also spearheaded an Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Symposium to address and improve entrepreneurial ecosystems, in order to grow the economy and facilitate job creation. Catering for delegates drawn from the City’s seven regions, the Symposium was able to canvass public sector institutions, private sector, educational institutions, NGO’S and, most importantly, entrepreneurs to create actionable plans that will assist in growing entrepreneurship amongst the youth.
The inner city also has the potential to create jobs and enhance small enterprises. It is for this reason that the city hosted the inner-city rejuvenation networking session with key stakeholders and investors at one of Joburg’ s newly established and contemporary mixed-use building ‘No.1 Eloff Street’. This building boasts a platform of doing business, provides space to a diverse number of emerging entrepreneurs, has an offering of affordable accommodation and a vibrant city ambiance from their restaurants, encompassed by jazz bars and artist studios all under one building.
The department of Economic Development specifically chose this particular venue in order to showcase possibilities that can emanate from an inner-city rejuvenation approach.
The inner city of Johannesburg is being rejuvenated into a vibrant, thriving business environment, with affordable housing and bounteous leisure. At the heart of achieving this goal is the imperative support needed from the private sector and the willingness from relevant and key investors, to re-look at the city of Joburg, in a whole new light – a positive light...
According to the Mid-Term Review of the Priorities of Government, one of the biggest challenges with regard to job creation and economic growth is the low government investment, especially at provincial and local government levels. It is for this reason, that the DA-led administration has put in place programmes and initiatives to tackle this.
Our history is proof that South Africans are people of strength and resilience when faced with challenges. We therefore cannot be discouraged and indulge in self-pity due to challenges we are faced with. Rather we have to work harder and use all that is at our disposal to achieve victory.
Besides employment opportunities, we have to expand the horizon by recognising that we do not have to be employed in order to gain income, but that we have to explore business opportunities, no matter how small they may seem. However, by international standards, South Africa still lags behind with regard to employment levels in the small business sector. In this regard, the new mind shift is that there should be more support for small enterprises that are currently disadvantaged in their relationship to the formal economy. However, the real challenge has always been to translate this into action.
The problems confronting our country today require not only government involvement but youth intervention as well. They include analysing and confronting social upheavals like the recent xenophobic attacks, unemployment, poverty, alcohol and drug abuse as well as HIV/AIDS related problems.
It is incumbent for me, as the Chief Whip of Council in the City of Johannesburg, to remind our Youth of not only their obligations but as well as their rights. Youth should for example, familiarise themselves with the educational discourse and transformation of our country. They need to ask themselves if the curriculum at school and tertiary level serves the purpose that the students of 1976 fought and died for. Will it, amongst other things, prepare the youth for prospective employment? Statistics South Africa has told us that youth unemployment has gone up from 32.7% in 2008 to 36.1% in 2014. Such problems are eating at our social fibre. We need our youth to acquire education and the necessary skills for them to become the socio-economic drivers of our country.
The City of Johannesburg is leading by example in addressing our urban youth problems, including youth unemployment and poverty. We are doing so in an effort to ensure that the legacy of the youth of 1976 is maintained by the DA-led government which came into office in 2016 when the residents of Johannesburg voted for change. The City has put in place Opportunity Centres, opening the first in Marshal Street in the Inner City. These centres will focus on a basket of services that will achieve the real empowerment of small businesses.
This includes registering companies on the City’s supplier database and training to improve the ability of these SMMEs to tender for City projects.
This initiative has been supported by SARS, CIPC, SAICA, SEDA, the Innovation Hub and a number of private sector partners – offering a full suite of services to incubate small businesses and access funding. Added to this, 300 youth will begin artisan training provided by the City. This is the start of a much bigger project that will see thousands of youth trained, gaining the requisite certification and experience in partnership with the private sector. This will ensure that our youth have access to opportunities that allow them to not only access the job market but to meaningfully advance through it as well.
Therefore, what we have here is not cast-in-stone; we invite young people to continuously use such forums, platforms and opportunities made possible by the City to not only receive what we offer to them, but to critique and generate ideas to improve government policies and programmes for their own benefit, and future generations.
About the author:
Kevin Patrick Wax was born in September 1959 in Kimberley and from the age of 3 moved to Kliptown.
He obtained his Bachelor of Arts (Economics and International Politics) and also furthered his studies by obtaining a Master of Philosophy degree Cum Laude exploring political ideologies in the Bible. Through the Department of Ancient Studies at Stellenbosch University, Cllr Wax obtained a PHD, focusing on the relationship between politics and religion. Cllr Wax also holds a Diploma in Business Management from Executive Educatio
Media Enquiries:
Siyanda Makhubo
Spokesperson
Office of the Chief Whip of Council
Cell: 081 548 9078
Email: SiyandaMa@joburg.org.za
